“On the morning of November 1st, 2016, I had my first seizure. I was seventeen years old at the time, it was the beginning of my senior year of high school. When I woke up, I was in the hospital surrounded by family members and some of my football coaches. I had no clue what had happened and felt myself getting emotional when I saw the worry on my parent’s face. The doctor came into the room and told me I had a seizure. At first, I barely knew anything about seizures, so I was not really scared at the time and thought it was going to be a one-time thing. That quickly changed a couple weeks later, I had another one and it started to happen more frequently. I ended up being diagnosed with epilepsy after visiting the neurologist. The neurologist told me they had no clue why I was having so many seizures because the test came back good, but I kept having them. At the time I was young, so I did not really think about it as a big deal. The doctors put me on medicine that I would end up having to take for the rest of my life. In my head I thought, ‘okay I won’t have them anymore since I’m on medicine.’
About two months later I had another seizure and my parents found me underneath my bed. After this I started to take it seriously because I saw how scared my parents were for me. I remember my dad asking me if I knew what was happening while I’m having these seizures and I simply told him no because I honestly did not. ‘All I know is I blackout and wake up with a headache,’ is what I told him. My dad went on YouTube and showed me a couple of videos of people having seizures because he knew I still wasn’t taking this seriously. After seeing the videos, it woke me up and made me realize what was going on. Three months went by and I saw on the news that Cameron Boyce, a Disney Channel actor, died from a seizure. This hit me hard because he died at twenty years old and I was 18 at the time, the age gap wasn’t that far. I started to do my own research on what causes seizures and it said stress was one of the main reasons.
At the time I was really stressed because it was my senior year and I was playing football. I made a promise to myself after doing the research that I would live everyday stress free and just enjoy life. I surrounded myself with great friends who I still talk to everyday since that incident and who always make sure I’m good whenever we go out. I got closer to God so I wouldn’t have that fear inside me whenever I would think about it affecting my life. All this helped me get closer with my family too because I saw how worried they were for me. I didn’t want them to be stressed. I made sure I would take better care of myself, so they didn’t have to worry as much.
When I look back at my journey with epilepsy, I look at it as a blessing because it made me enjoy life more, to appreciate the little things, and to always be kind to people. You never know what someone is truly going through in their life and what they are battling. I stopped stressing over things I couldn’t control and just let my life run its course. I realized we all have a purpose and that made me take control. Ever since I took control and surrounded myself with great friends and family, I have not had a seizure since.”
Max
